Blithe Spirit Blithe Spirit 2m, 5f ISBN: 9780573606144 The smash comedy hit of the London and Broadway stages, this much-revived classic from the playwright of Private Lives offers up fussy, cantakerous novelist Charles Condomine, re-married but haunted (literally) by the ghost of his late first wife, the clever and insistent Elvira who is called up by a visiting "happy medium", one Madame Arcati. Settings Of Play - The living room of Charles Condomine's house in Kent, England. FEATURES / CONTAINS Cutting Approved for Competition, Scene work, UIL Approved, Competition or audition material Interior Set Elaborate / High Volume Costumes, Fantasy Costumes, Period Costumes CAUTIONS Adult, Senior, Pre-Teen (Age 11 - 13), Teen (Age 14 - 18) PERFORMANCE GROUP High School/Secondary, College Theatre / Student, Community Theatre, Dinner Theatre, Professional Theatre, Senior Theatre, Reader's Theatre, Large Stage RECOGNITION / AWARDS From Broadway, From West End Winner!

2009 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Revival The smash comedy hit of the London and Broadway stages, this much-revived classic from the playwright of Private Lives offers up fussy, cantakerous novelist Charles Condomine, re-married but haunted (literally) by the ghost of his late first wife, the clever and insistent Elvira who is called up by a visiting "happy medium", one Madame Arcati. As the (worldly and un-) personalities clash, Charles' current wife Ruth is accidentally killed, "passes over", joins Elvira and the two "blithe spirits" haunt the hapless Charles into perpetuity.

REVIEWS "Can still keep an audience in a state of tickled contentment" - Ben Brantley, The New York Times, 2009 "A world-class comedy" - TheatreMania.com, 2009 RELATED ARTICLES ON BREAKING CHARACTER Blithe Spirit review: The play's the thing in a fine Noël Coward revival | Stage | The Guardian Blithe Spirit review: The play's the thing in a fine Noël Coward revival 4 / 5 stars Gielgud, London Angela Lansbury is back on a London stage after nearly 40 years, but her presence has a faintly distorting effect Blithe Spirit at the Gielgud Theatre; Serena Evans (Mrs Bradman), Charles Edwards (Charles Condomine), Angela Lansbury (Madame Arcati), Janie Dee (Ruth Condomine) and Simon Jones (Dr Bradman) Photograph: Photo:/Marilyn Kingwill Tuesday 18 March 2014 19.00 EDT First published on Tuesday 18 March 2014 19.00 EDT Share on Messenger Close Good as it is to see Angela Lansbury back on a London stage after nearly 

40 years, her presence has a faintly distorting effect on an otherwise fine revival of Noël Coward's "improbable farce".

It is Lansbury's image that dominates the posters and publicity, but Coward's 1941 play is not called Madame Arcati, nor is it about spiritualism. It is really about a subject that haunts all Coward's best comedies, which is the perils of long-term commitment. Coward's hero, Charles Condomine, is a popular novelist who is famously spooked by his past. Married to the super-rational Ruth, his second marriage, he rashly holds a seance to research a thriller he is writing about a homicidal medium. But a jokey experiment causes marital mayhem when, with the aid of the hearty Arcati, he finds his first wife, Elvira, has suddenly materialised. What follows is a spectral variation on the eternal triangle, with Charles torn between two equally demanding women. Some have accused the play of misogyny. In reality it explores Coward's belief in a life of unshackled freedom. In Hay Fever and Private Lives characters tiptoe away from domestic wrangles, while Design For Living is a passionate plea for bohemian licence.

Blithe Spirit wittily extends the idea that the writer needs only an overnight bag without the extra burden of emotional baggage. The play is at its best, in fact, in the retrospective spats between Charles and his wives over an imperfect past to which the only answer is flight into an indefinite future. But it is Lansbury the audience has come to see and she gives good value. She follows a basic rule of acting by playing Madame Arcati from the character's point of view: not as a fake medium but as someone who takes her trade seriously. Tall, accosting and with hair coiled round her ears like outsize headphones, Lansbury shoots blood-freezing glances at a sceptical doctor's wife. When going into a trance, Lansbury careers around the stage like a bird about to take wing. And she emits little gurgles of delight when the ghostly Elvira blows draughts of air into her face. Even if Lansbury's voice seems on a different level from that of her colleagues, it is a perfectly credible performance. The real star of the show, however, is Charles Edwards as the novelist-hero.

As he confirmed last year in the National's Strange Interlude , Edwards is one of the best comic actors on the British stage and, here, he charts perfectly the hero's zig-zag emotions. Cool unflappability yields to incipient panic at the prospect of Elvira's reappearance. After a night of drowsy caresses from the ghostly Elvira, Edwards exudes an almost indecent post-coital glee which instantly turns to rancour under breakfast-table interrogation. There's a touch of Cary Grant about Edwards's portrait of a smooth man thrown into marital disarray. Michael Blakemore's skilful production also lends an Ionesco-like absurdity to Charles's hostile remarks to Elvira that are mistakenly taken by Ruth as applying to her. The comedy is reinforced by the excellent Janie Dee, who lends Ruth an air of steely ferocity, while Jemima Rooper's Elvira is an unusually tactile and seductive spook.

But it's the sculpted dialogue that gives most pleasure and it's a sign of Coward's theatricality that a simple line such as Ruth's statement about Elvira – "My husband has driven her into Folkestone" – can still raise the roof. For me the play's the thing rather than the return of a popular star. Until 7 June. Box Office: 0844 482 5130 Directors Michael Blakemore and Blanche McIntyre discuss their productions of Blithe Spirit and Tonight at 8.30 Published: 7 May 2014 Director Blanche McIntyre talks to Liz Hoggard about her rise to the top and why sexual politics in the theatre annoy her Published: 2 Nov 2013 Blithe Spirit Written by Noël Coward Author Noël Coward Sir Noël Pierce Coward (1899 - 1973) Noël Coward was not only a prolific playwright but a poet, composer, director, actor and singer too. Well-known for his wit and flamboyance, his work and style continue to influence popular culture.

Born in Teddington, Coward attended a dance academy as a child, making his professional stage debut at the age of eleven. As a teenager he was introduced into the high society in which most of his plays would be set. Coward achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. He composed hundreds of songs, in addition to well over a dozen musical theatre works, poetry, several volumes of short stories, a novel (Pomp and Circumstance) and a three-volume autobiography. Coward's stage and film acting and directing career spanned six decades, during which he starred in many of his own works. At the outbreak of World War II, Coward volunteered for war work. He worked with the Secret Service, seeking to use his influence to persuade the American public and government to help Britain. Coward won an Academy Honorary Award in 1943 for his naval film drama, 'In Which We Serve', and was knighted in 1969. In the 1950s he achieved fresh success as a cabaret performer, performing his own songs and the former Albery Theatre was renamed the Noël Coward Theatre in his honour in 2006.

PlayBlithe Spirit 'Blithe Spirit' was written in 1941 and despite poor reviews by the critics, proved a hit with the public during the dark days of war. It set a new long-run record for non-musical British plays of 1,997 performances for its West End run, which started that year. It also did well on Broadway, running for 657 performances. Coward adapted the play for film in 1945, starring Rex Harrison and Margaret Rutherford, and he directed a musical adaptation, 'High Spirits' on Broadway in 1964. The play was also adapted for television in the 1950s and 1960s and for radio. 'Blithe Spirit' takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "To a Skylark" ("Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!, Bird thou never wert"). The story concerns socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to gather material for his next book.

The scheme backfires when he is haunted by the ghost of his annoying and temperamental first wife, Elvira, following the séance. Elvira makes continual attempts to disrupt Charles' marriage to his second wife, Ruth, who cannot see or hear the ghost and much of the humour is derived from Charles' and Ruth's attempts to send Elvira back where she came from. Blithe Spirit Blithe Spirit Blithe Spirit is a comic play written by Noël Coward which takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “To a Skylark” (“Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! / Bird thou never wert”). The play concerns socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to gather material for his next book. The scheme backfires when he is haunted by the ghost of his annoying and temperamental first wife, Elvira, following the séance. Elvira makes continual attempts to disrupt Charles’s marriage to his second wife, Ruth, who cannot see or hear the ghost.

The play was first seen on the West End in London in 1941 and set a new long-run record for non-musical British plays of 1,997 performances. It also did well on Broadway later that year, running for 657 performances. Coward adapted the play for film in 1945, starring Rex Harrison, and directed a musical adaptation, High Spirits, on Broadway in 1964. It was also adapted for television in the 1950s and 1960s and for radio. The play enjoyed several West End and Broadway revivals in the 1970s and 1980s and was revived again in London in 2004. It returned to Broadway in February 2009. Broadway revival began previews on 26 February 2009 at the Shubert Theatre with an official opening on 15 March 2009.Michael Blakemore directed, with the cast starring Angela Lansbury as Madame Arcati, Christine Ebersole as Elvira, Rupert Everett as Charles, Jayne Atkinson as Ruth and Simon Jones as Dr. Bradman.

The New York Times found the revival somewhat uneven, calling the opening performance “bumpy”, but praised Lansbury as Madame Arcati. Lansbury won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, and Martin Pakledinaz was nominated for the Tony for Best Costume Design. The play won the Drama League Award for Distinguished Revival of a Play. Thea Sharrock directed a revival of her production of the play at the Apollo Theatre, London; it ran from 2 March to 18 June 2011, with a cast including Alison Steadman as Madame Arcati, Robert Bathurst as Charles, Hermione Norris as Ruth and Ruthie Henshall as Elvira Background The title of the play is taken from Shelley’s poem “To a Skylark”.[1] After his London office and apartment had been destroyed in The Blitz, Coward wrote Blithe Spirit in 1941 during a holiday that he took with actress Joyce Carey to Portmeirion on the coast of Snowdonia in Wales.

He wrote it straight through from beginning to end whilst staying at the Fountain 2 (Upper Fountain) suite at Portmeirion and only two lines of dialogue were removed before its first production in London.[2] In his autobiography Coward claimed he wrote the play in five days. During World War II, before Russia and the U.S. joined forces with the Allies, Great Britain was suffering severe casualties and facing German bombing attacks at home. Coward felt that British audiences would want to view an escapist comedy such as Blithe Spirit.[1] The play provoked a small outcry at the time of its first performances, as it was seen to be possibly making fun of death at the height of the war;[3] however, such objections were quickly forgotten, and the play went on to set British box-office records. The subject was timely for many, because people who wished to contact their loved ones that had died in the war were turning to spiritualism. The play’s run of 1,997 consecutive performances set a record for non-musical plays in the West End that was not surpassed until Boeing Boeing in the 1970s.

Coward repeats one of his signature theatrical devices at the end of the play, where the central character tiptoes out as the curtain falls – a device that he also used in Present Laughter, Private Lives and Hay Fever. Productions The play was first produced at the Manchester Opera House in June 1941, and then premiered in the West End at the Piccadilly Theatre on July 21, 1941, and transferred to the St. James’s Theatre and then the Duchess Theatre for a total of 1,997 performances.[4][5] It was directed by Coward, and the principal cast members were Kay Hammond as Elvira, Margaret Rutherford as Madame Arcati, Cecil Parker as Charles and Fay Compton as Ruth.[6] During the run, Beryl Measor took over as Madame Arcati and Irene Browne took over the role of Ruth.[5] The Broadway premiere took place on November 5, 1941 at the Morosco Theatre in a production staged by John C. Wilson and designed by Stewart Chaney.

In the cast were Leonora Corbett as Elvira, Mildred Natwick as Madame Arcati, Clifton Webb as Charles, Peggy Wood as Ruth and Jacqueline Clarke as Edith. The play transferred to the Booth Theatre on May 18, 1942 and it ran for a total of 657 performances.

Coward starred as Charles in a wartime UK touring company, beginning in September 1942, with Joyce Carey as Ruth, Judy Campbell as Elvira and Molly Johnson as Madame Arcati.[7] Dennis Price covered for Coward when the latter was taken ill.[8] In July 1970, the play was revived in the West End at the Globe Theatre, starring Amanda Reiss as Elvira, Beryl Reid as Madame Arcati, Patrick Cargill as Charles and Phyllis Calvert as Ruth and ran until January 1971.[9] It was then revived by the National Theatre in 1976, in a production directed by Harold Pinter, starring Maria Aitken as Elvira, Elizabeth Spriggs as Madame Arcati, Rowena Cooper as Ruth and Richard Johnson as Charles.[10] Another London revival played in 1986 at the Vaudeville Theatre, starring Joanna Lumley as Elvira, Marcia Warren as Madame Arcati, Simon Cadell as Charles and Jane Asher as Ruth.[11] Blithe Spirit was revived on Broadway at the Neil Simon Theatre on March 31, 1987 in a production directed by Brian

 Murray, designed by Finlay James and with costume design by Theoni V.

Aldredge. It starred Richard Chamberlain as Charles, Blythe Danner as Elvira, Judith Ivey as Ruth and Geraldine Page, who received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress, as Madame Arcati. It ran for 104 performances.

Page died of a heart attack during the play’s run.[12] Patricia Conolly succeeded Page in the role.[13] In 2002 the play was given a short production at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, New York, with Twiggy as Elvira, Dana Ivey as Madame Arcati, Patricia Kalember as Ruth, and Daniel Gerroll, who also directed, as Charles.[14] The piece was back in the West End at the Savoy Theatre in 2004, in a production directed by Thea Sharrock, starring Amanda Drew as Elvira, Penelope Keith (succeeded by Stephanie Cole) as Madame Arcati, Aden Gillett as Charles and Joanna Riding as Ruth.[15] A Broadway revival began previews on February 26, 2009 at the Shubert Theatre with an official opening on March 15, 2009.[16] Michael Blakemore directed, with the cast starring Angela Lansbury as Madame Arcati, Christine Ebersole as Elvira, Rupert Everett as Charles, Jayne Atkinson as Ruth and Simon Jones as Dr.

Bradman.[17] The New York Times found the revival somewhat uneven, calling the opening performance “bumpy”, but praised Lansbury as Madame Arcati.[18] Lansbury won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, and Martin Pakledinaz was nominated for the Tony for Best Costume Design.[19] The play won the Drama League Award for Distinguished Revival of a Play.[20] Thea Sharrock has been engaged to direct a limited-run revival of the play, scheduled for tryouts at several regional theatres in November 2010 and February 2011 before a West End transfer to the Apollo Theatre from March to June 2011. The producers announced that Alison Steadman will star as Madame Arcati, Robert Bathurst as Charles, and Hermione Norris as Ruth.[21] Synopsis Charles Condomine, a successful novelist, wishes to learn about the occult for a novel he is writing, and he arranges for an eccentric medium, Madame Arcati, to hold a séance at his house. At the séance, she inadvertently summons Charles’s first wife, Elvira, who has been dead for seven years.

Madame Arcati leaves after the séance, unaware that she has summoned Elvira. Only Charles can see or hear Elvira, and his second wife, Ruth, does not believe that Elvira exists until a floating vase is handed to her out of thin air. The ghostly Elvira makes continued, and increasingly desperate, efforts to disrupt Charles’s current marriage. She finally sabotages his car in the hope of killing him so that he will join her in the spirit world, but it is Ruth rather than Charles who drives off and is killed. Ruth’s ghost immediately comes back for revenge on Elvira, and though Charles cannot at first see Ruth, he can see that Elvira is being chased and tormented, and his house is in uproar. He calls Madame Arcati back to exorcise both of the spirits, but instead of banishing them, she materialises Ruth. With both his dead wives now fully visible, and neither of them in the best of tempers, Charles, together with Madame Arcati, goes through séance after séance and spell after spell to try to exorcise them, and at last Madame Arcati succeeds.

Charles is left seemingly in peace, but Madame Arcati, hinting that the ghosts may still be around unseen, warns him that he should go far away as soon as possible. Charles leaves at once, and the unseen ghosts throw things and destroy the room as soon as he has gone. (In the David Lean film version, the ghosts thwart Charles’s attempt to escape, and his car is again sabotaged; he crashes and joins them as a ghost, with Elvira at one arm and Ruth at the other.) Roles and Original Cast Ruth Condomine, his second wife – Fay Compton Elvira Condomine, his first wife and ghostly presence – Kay Hammond Madame Arcati, a medium – Margaret Rutherford Doctor George Bradman, a friend – Martin Lewis Mrs. Bradman, his wife – Moya Nugent Edith, a maid – Ruth Reeves When the play transferred from the Piccadilly Theatre to the St. James’s Theatre in 1942, Coward took over the role of Charles for a time Musical The play was adapted into a musical, High Spirits, in 1964, with book, music and lyrics by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray.

It had a Broadway run of more than 300 performances, starring Tammy Grimes as Elvira, Edward Woodward as Charles and Beatrice Lillie in an expanded role as Madame Arcati. It also had a brief West End run. Noël Coward directed the Broadway production. The show received eight Tony Award nominations but did not win any. Among the other major musical nominees that same year (1964) were Funny Girl and Hello, Dolly! and most of the major Tony wins went to the latter. Film, Television and Radio Blithe Spirit was also made into a successful film in 1945, adapted by Coward and directed by David Lean. The cast included Kay Hammond as Elvira, Margaret Rutherford as Madame Arcati, Rex Harrison as Charles and Constance Cummings as Ruth. Coward directed a 1956 American TV production, where he also starred as Charles, with Lauren Bacall as Elvira, Mildred Natwick as Madame Arcati and Claudette Colbert as Ruth.

On UK radio and television, notable portrayals of Madame Arcati have been given by Hattie Jacques (ITV 1964, directed by Joan Kemp-Welch, Joanna Dunham as Elvira, Griffith Jones as Charles and Helen Cherry as Ruth) and Peggy Mount (BBC radio 1983, with Anna Massey as Elvira, Paul Eddington as Charles and Julia McKenzie as Ruth.[23] Another TV-production was presented in 1966 on the Hallmark Hall of Fame, with Rosemary Harris as Elvira, Dirk Bogarde as Charles, Rachel Roberts as Ruth, and Ruth Gordon as Madame Arcati. In December 2008, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a new adaptation of the play for radio, by Bert Coules, with Roger Allam as Charles, Maggie Steed as Madame Arcati, Zoe Waites as Elvira and Hermione Gulliford as Ruth. 1. “Blithe Spirit”, Bench Theatre , 2006, accessed 20 October 2009 2. “A look at the history behind Noel Coward’s play Blithe Spirit”, bbc.co.uk , date unk 3. Hoare, p.

321 5. The Times, 29 June 1942, p. 6; and 8 October 1942, p. 6 6. The Times, 3 July 1941, p. 2 7. The Times, 21 September 1942, p. 8 8. The Times, 5 August 1943, p. 6 9. The Times, 23 July 1970; and 14 January 1971, p. 10 10. The Times, 25 June 1976, p. 11 11. The Guardian, 1 February 1986, p. 12 12. The Guardian, 15 June 1987, p. 10 13. Kolbert, Elizabeth. “Geraldine Page, 62, Dies; A Star of Stage and Fillm”. The New York Times , 15 June 1987, accessed 2 August 2010 14. Simonson, Robert.

“Twiggy, Ivey, Gerroll to Haunt Bay Street’s Blithe Spirit July 16-Aug. 4”, playbill.com , 16 July 2002 15. “Blithe Spirit” listing, thisistheatre.com 16. Gans, Andrew. “Simon Jones Joins Cast of Blithe Spirit; Revival to Play the Shubert”, playbill.com , 4 November 2008 17. Gans, Andrew. “Atkinson Joins Starry Cast of Broadway’s Blithe Spirit Revival”, playbill.com , 17 November 2008 18. Brantley, Ben. “The Medium as the Messenger”, The New York Times , March 16, 2009 19. “Who’s Nominated?” TonyAwards.com , accessed May 11, 2009 20. Gans, Andrew. “Billy, Carnage, Hair, Blithe and Rush Win Drama League Awards”, playbill.com , May 15, 2009 21. BWW News Desk (July 16, 2010).

“Hermione Norris and Robert Bathurst Join Cast of Blithe Spirit, Opens 3/2”. BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved on July 16, 2010. 22. Coward, unnumbered introductory page 23. The Times, 27 December 1983, p. 17 Blithe Spirit | The Plays | The Plays Blithe Spirit Performances run March 22 - May 11 All performances Fridays & Saturdays at 8PM, and Sundays at 3PM $12.50 (previews only), $25 (adults), $22 (seniors), $15 (students), $10 (Children 10 and younger) Group discounts available! Chicago Theater Beat In a world where wit is a weapon but also a mask, comedy transpires... Successful author Charles Condomine and his wife Ruth invite spiritualist Madame Arcati for a séance as research for Charles' new book. The novelty of this midsummer's diversion has unexpected results when Charles' former wife Elvira appears with a seductively supernatural agenda. A highly comedic battle of wits plays out in this ethereal and corporeal love triangle.

In the end, truths are unmasked and mystery is unraveled as Charles and Arcati lift the spirits from limbo to levity. Cast: Kevin Bishop (Charles), Lauren Goode (Ruth)**, Vanessa Hughes (Mrs. Bradman)**, Kate McDermott (Elvira), Joan McGrath (Madame Arcati), Jason Martin (Dr. Bradman)**, Genesee Spridco & Alyson Grauer (Edith), Claire Hart, & Nathan Thompson (Understudies) Production Staff: Christopher Marino (Director), Tabbi Koller (Assistant Director)**, Stephanie Neilitz (Stage Manager)**, Benjamin Cormalleth (Asst. Stage Manager)**, Gordon Granger (Technical Director), Chad Bianchi (Scenic Design), Cassy Schillo (Props Design), Joshua D.

Allard (Costume Design)**, Aaron Quick (Sound Design), Aimee Warshall (Lighting Design)**, Jason Martin (Dialect Coaching)** 'Blithe Spirit,' Noel Coward's ghostly comedy, now playing at the Alhambra Posted May 15, 2016 03:38 pm - Updated May 15, 2016 03:39 pm By Charlie Patton 'Blithe Spirit,' Noel Coward's ghostly comedy, now playing at the Alhambra He died 43 years ago and did his finest work from the mid-1920s through the end of World War II. So it’s hardly surprising that some people today don’t recognize Noel Coward’s name. But in his day Coward was regarded as a great playwright. “None of the great figures of the English theatre has been more versatile than he,” The Times of London said, comparing Coward to such masters as Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw. Perhaps the best of Coward’s many plays is “Blithe Spirit,” currently being performed at the Alhambra Theatre & Dining.

The play, which opened both in London’s West End theater district and on Broadway in 1941, has been regularly revived over the years. “Blithe Spirit” has elements of farce. But ultimately it is a black drawing room comedy, extremely funny, sophisticated and as dark as a moonless night. The action is triggered when novelist Charles Condomine, who is planning to write a book about spiritual mediums, invites the eccentric Madame Arcati to his house to conduct a seance. Nobody takes the situation very seriously. But when the seance is over, the spirit of Condomine’s deceased first wife, Elvira, appears. But only Condomine can see and hear Elvira, which leads to farce when their conversations are overheard by Condomine’s second wife, Ruth, who thinks he’s talking to her. Complications ensue. The Alhambra’s cast is first rate. Lisa Valdini plays Madame Arcati as a lovable ditz. Jessica Booth, who is the daughter of Valdini and director Tod Booth, is a wonderfully willful Elvira. Laura Hodos and David Arrow are very British as the insecure Ruth and caddish Charles.

It all makes for a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Charlie Patton: (904) 359-4413 Angela Lansbury’s Magic Act in ‘Blithe Spirit’: She Transforms Herself Before Your Eyes - The New York Times The New York Times Tony Awards |Her Magic Act: Transforming Herself Nightly Search Continue reading the main story “BLITHE SPIRIT” is a piece of fluff built around some titanium clockwork that Noël Coward soldered together over just a few days in 1941, when he thought London needed cheering up. Without knowing it he had begun to invent the sitcom. The mainspring of the mechanism, and the key to its success, is the part of Madame Arcati, the martini-guzzling, ectoplasm-sniffing medium who summons forth the shade of Charles Condomine’s departed first wife. She needs to be simultaneously preposterous and entirely serious, and Angela Lansbury , in her Tony-nominated performance in the current revival at the Shubert Theater, is a whirlwind of dottiness with a ramrod spine of practicality.

Her eyes rimmed in black, clunky jewelry dangling from her neck, she plays Madame Arcati like a tyrannical gym teacher, at one point urging her fellow séance-goers, “Next time we must really put our backs into it.” Ms. Lansbury, who is 83, with five previous Tony nominations (and four wins) in her portfolio, also brings an otherworldly amount of energy to the part. Before going into her trance, she turns on the gramophone and performs an elaborately silly dance that carries her all over the stage and seems at times like a demented version of Steve Martin’s old “King Tut” routine. At one early performance she got so carried away she almost landed in the lap of Simon Jones, who plays the skeptical Dr. Bradman. Recovering quickly, she held out her hand and invited him to join in. There is not a great deal of textual support for this part of her performance, Ms. Lansbury admitted recently, sitting in the apartment she keeps in New York.

The stage direction says only, “Occasionally she moves into an abortive little dance step.” “I thought, ‘I’ll take it from there,’ ” she said, “and it’s just sort of grown.” She laughed. “Not really very abortive anymore.” Photo Angela Lansbury, at 83, is a Tony nominee for her performance in Blithe Spirit. Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times The director, Michael Blakemore, encouraged her, she added, though she told him she didn’t really know what she was doing. Every night the dance is a little different, and she makes it up as she goes along. According to Mr. Jones, the stagehands have had to remind Ms. Lansbury not to dance so far downstage that she topples into the audience. Ms. Lansbury is not a fan of the Method. “I always say, ‘Don’t do it; act it,’ ” she said, explaining: “I don’t know anything at all about the occult. I think all that just gets in the way.

You have to take what’s given to you by the author.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story In the case of Madame Arcati what Coward gave her was the character’s dialogue. “She talks with such authority, she’s like a sergeant major, and what that told me was she probably attended a place like Girton,” she said, referring to the famously bluestocking women’s college at Cambridge in England. "I knew a lot of women like that when I was young.” Madame Arcati’s hairdo — a bright red wig with Princess Leia-like plaits wrapped over her ears — was also Ms. Lansbury’s idea. “We used to call them earphones, and they were the style in the ’20s and ’30s,” she said. “My nan, the woman who took care of me as a child, wore them.” Rupert Everett, who plays Condomine, the play’s other key role, with a languor, wit and elegance that make him seem practically a stand-in for Coward himself, said of Ms. Lansbury’s portrayal: “She’s nothing like herself.

If you don’t talk to her before the performance for a couple of days, you start to get used to the character and imagine that it really is Angela. It’s an amazing feat. We’re all just awe-struck by her energy.” In real life Ms. Lansbury seems taller and more willowy than she does onstage. She’s more composed than Madame Arcati and burns at a cooler temperature, speaking in a low, soft voice. She’s also a very handsome woman and still has the wide forehead, deep, wide-set eyes and cupid’s bow mouth of a movie star from the studio era. She really is what Mr. Jones jokingly called a legend. Photo Ms. Lansbury with Rupert Everett in Blithe Spirit. Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times “Legends!” he said, pretending to sound weary of them and pointing out that he had also appeared with Rex Harrison, Claudette Colbert, Lauren Bacall and even Laurence Olivier. “But with Angela it’s quite an educational experience,” he went on. “The audience adores her.” At many performances Ms. Lansbury practically stops the show the moment she steps onstage.

Doubtless some of those applauding are greeting their reassuring old Sunday evening companion, Jessica Fletcher, from the anodyne CBS series “Murder, She Wrote.” But others surely remember her groundbreaking, Tony-winning performances in “Mame,” “Gypsy” and “Sweeney Todd,” and, scrolling back in the scrapbook, they can still picture her as Laurence Harvey’s evil mum in “The Manchurian Candidate,” as Victor Mature’s busty fiancée in “Samson and Delilah,” as Elizabeth Taylor’s older sister in “National Velvet,” as a sweetly innocent vaudeville singer in “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and as the saucy, sexy cockney servant girl in “Gaslight.” “Gaslight,” which came out in 1944, was Ms. Lansbury’s film debut, so talked-about that it immediately landed her a contract with MGM. She was just 18 then and had grown up in a family that combined theater and politics. Her mother, Moyna MacGill, had been a West End actress. Her grandfather, George Lansbury, was a member of Parliament and leader of the Labor Party. “I went to all the best schools,” Ms.

Lansbury said, “but I had no book learning. I was more interested in watching and listening to people. I was always dropping off into daydreams about who they were and what they were doing.” Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy What Ms. Lansbury’s mother had perceived as a certain talent for comedy turned into considerable screen allure, and for a while it seemed that Ms. Lansbury might have the kind of career enjoyed by her friend Deborah Kerr. She was sexy, glamorous and in those days had the high, quick, very British voice so much in style then. “But I was an actress,” she said. “I wasn’t very good at being a starlet. I didn’t want to pose for cheesecake photos and that kind of thing. It was very difficult. I tried to fit in, but I really wasn’t cut out for it. I don’t know what I did wrong. Maybe I didn’t sleep with enough people. I think that had something to do with it. I really do. Maybe I didn’t play Louis B.

Mayer the way I might have.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Instead of stardom, Ms. Lansbury said, she had the kind of career she wanted, and after some lean days in the ’50s, when the movie parts she was offered were no longer to her liking, she was rescued by the theater. “In 1957 I came to Broadway to read for ‘Hotel Paradiso’ with Bert Lahr,” she said. “That was the beginning.” Photo Ms. Lansbury in the role that brought her television fame: Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote. Credit CBS Her career in musical comedy began in the early ’60s when Arthur Laurents wrote to her, inviting her to try out for the new Stephen Sondheim show “Anyone Can Whistle.” “For some reason they liked my personality,” she said. “But I had a little, high soprano, and they wanted a belter, so I learned how to belt.” She added: “I loved singing in musicals. It’s a much easier job to be in a musical than to be in a straight play.

The music just carries you along — provided you’ve got a great role, that is.” She sighed a little when asked about “Murder, She Wrote.” “I know, I know,” she said. “It’s going to be in my obit. That’s how they’ll lead off. It was really a fluke success and came at a time when that kind of family entertainment seemed needed. It did particularly well with men, oddly enough. The character was very calming. She was the voice of reason in a very troubled time — the recession of the ’80s, if you think about it.” She went on to say that of all the characters she has played, Jessica Fletcher is probably the most like herself. “I had a lot of say in it, and I didn’t want the character to be quirky,” she explained. “I wanted her to be real. I didn’t want to have to put on any kind of veneer for 24 hours a day, which is what a television schedule sometimes feels like. I’m not as smart as Jessica, but I’m intuitive and sensitive the way she is. If you’re sensitive, I’ve found, you can pick up what you need as you go along.” Ms.

Lansbury’s previous Broadway appearance was in 2007, when she starred with Marian Seldes, another formidable presence, in “Deuce,” about a pair of retired tennis stars. The experience was thoroughly satisfying despite indifferent reviews, yet she resolved never to repeat it. “I said: ‘That’s it. I’m never coming back.’ It’s a very lonely life, being in a play when you’re on your own. You go to the theater, you go home and go to bed,” she said, adding that she had a tendency to be passive and retiring and used to rely on her husband, Peter Shaw, who died in 2003, to “tip me out of the garden.” But for “Blithe Spirit” she tipped herself out. “When this was proposed to me, my ears perked up like a terrier,” she said. “I immediately said, ‘Wow, I’d love to have a crack at playing Madame Arcati.’ How many roles like that can I see at this time in my life?” She added that not the least appealing thing about the part was that Madame Arcati doesn’t appear in every scene.

“It’s a play that vocally requires a great deal of energy and power, and I wouldn’t want to have to take it at full tilt every scene. I could do it if I have to, but it takes its toll.” She went on: “I come from strong, muscular stock, and I take extraordinarily good care of myself, I can tell you that. I do it for no other reason than that I don’t want to get sick and become a burden on people.” Mr. Jones said: “She does get tired, but she knows how to pace herself. That’s her skill.” He added that on eBay recently he had come across an exercise tape that Ms. Lansbury made in 1988. “I keep telling her: ‘For goodness sake, you should sell it in the lobby. You’re living proof it works.’ ” Correction: June 7, 2009 A picture caption on May 17 with an article about Angela Lansbury misidentified an actor shown with her in “Samson and Delilah” (1949), and a correction in this space last Sunday misstated the given name of the other actor in the photo. The actor shown with Ms.

Lansbury is William Farnum, who portrayed Tubal  not Henry Wilcoxon, who played Ahtur in the film. And the third actor is Victor Mature, not Vincent. A version of this article appears in print on , on Page AR6 of the New York edition with the headline: Her Magic Act: Transforming Herself Nightly. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

Question: Madame Arcati appears in which Noel Coward play?
Answer: BLITHE SPIRIT